By Hailey Nance
Thursday morning I arrived at my first ever shoot. As we unloaded everything at …Destination, where everybody is in pique physical condition, I was reminded that I forgot to go to the gym last night, and the night before that and that night before that. But I had bigger things to worry about. Matt Munson asked me to set up the boom mic. Shouldn’t be too difficult right? Well, if you account for the fact that I’ve only seen them in movies, the fact that there are identical cords that had to be plugged in somehow, and the fact that they have to be inputting that audio to something, I clearly had no idea what I was doing. But I’m not one that likes to admit that.
However, after about five minutes of looking at the mic, plugging things into different ends and a general gaze of “I totally know what I’m doing, I’m just gazing upon the glory that is the boom mic,” I finally had to admit that I had zero clue what was going on. So I asked. And Matt told me exactly what to do. It was wonderful. Then I realized that he had told me in professional production lingo. I had the option to either nod along like I knew what he was talking about, or once again admit that I know absolutely nothing.
But, I asked what it all meant. And guess what, he told me! It’s almost like they expect us interns to know nothing! Surprise surprise. After realizing that I’ll have a long road ahead of me if I pretend to know things, I decided that I’m just going to face each foreign task with a mindset of “I have no idea what I’m doing, but if I’m too afraid to ask, I’ll never learn anything.” And that’s why I’m here, to learn.
Next on my list, buying a dictionary of production terminology.
